School started again, which has slowed my blogging pace even further. The class is on branding. At my previous agency, when someone used the word "branding" I always wanted to pantomime shoveling. Invoking "The Brand" (cue heavenly host music) was usually the precursor to incredible twirling fancies of nonsense. There was one person, "Chucklehead," who was the main twirler. When I'd try and ask questions about what the hell he was talking about, he'd get this benign instructive look on his face and spin 10 times more crap. I finally learned it was easier to nod and look thoughtful for one minute than 10.

I'm not saying all of branding is BS. I mean, if you judged PR by some (most? all?) of its practitioners you'd get the same impression. But I've got the bullshit detector on high and am already wary from the first class, when we learned the term Brand Stewardship. Not! -- our teacher winces -- brand management. I didn't write down the whole definition but it involved the word "nurturing." There's some article, "It takes a village to raise a brand." Vomit sounds . . .

Your first instinct might be to blame all this cutesiness on women, but all the Brand Stewards I've ever known were men. Now, a client of mine has numerous brand managers. They're all women. 

¶ 10:42 PM